March 24, 2010

Dave's Unspoilt Capsules and Awards

The Week's Picks and Pans, plus Awards of Dubious Merit
Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does
not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this week.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
IDW is now a Premiere Publisher at Diamond. Too bad this doesn't change a
thing in terms of small retailers not getting IDW books in a timely manner.
Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): The Cartoon
History of the Modern World Part II.
"Other Media" Capsules:
Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e.
comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
section when I have any to mention. They may not be as timely as comic
reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
(or ten) to get around to.
Just a couple quick comments on the Comic Series Iron Man 2 figure of
the original "gray armor", which I grabbed because Target was having a sale
($5.99 each). It looks good and is generally solid, but the standard hip
joints of the line don't work well on this design. For some reason, the left
hand is in a "come here" gesture with crooked index finger. The right is in
a fist for the energy blast accessory to fit over, although that armor had no
energy blasts. The ironmancard.com URL is still redirecting to marvel.com.
Time-Shifting:
Sometimes I get a comic a week or two late because of Diamond's
combination of neglect and incompetence. If it's more than a week late,
though, I won't review it unless it's very notable. Additionally, I will
often get tradepaperbacks long after publication or even sometimes before
Diamond ships them, and those will go here. If I'm reasonably sure I'm
reviewing something that didn't ship this week, this is the section for it.
The Cartoon History of the Modern World Part II: From the Bastille to
Bagdad: Harper - The final part of Larry Gonick's multi-publisher decades-in-
the-making cartoon history actually came out in 2009, but apparently Diamond
never bothered to ship it or even tell my store it wasn't shipping, so I got
it from Amazon (along with his Cartoon History of the U.S. since I didn't
have it yet and needed more on my order to get free shipping, but I won't be
reviewing that this week).
In five relatively thick trades (even the ones that never came out as
single issues are still laid out as if they were collections) Larry Gonick
set out to cover all of human history. Obviously, it's going to be a fairly
sparse coverage with biases in terms of what does and doesn't get covered,
but by and large he takes the view that if it had a big non-local impact it
got covered more extensively. However, the footnote-laden style he used let
him go off on all sorts of tangents, so only the most ardent students of
history will come away from these books having learned nothing new.
This volume is pretty Euro-centric, but that reflects the fact that the
period involved was pretty Euro-centric. Colonialism, wars, philosophical
movements...Europeans pretty much dominated history. Even the reasonably
in-depth coverage of nations like China or Japan in this volume is largely
about how those nations dealt with the incursions of men, money and ideas
from Europe. Sure, many deep and complex concepts and events get breezed
through in a couple of pages, but Gonick's good at packing the essential
points into those pages. For instance, he spent two pages on the traveling
electrons thought experiment that helped lead Einstein to devise his Special
Theory of Relativity, and I'm tempted to scan the pages and show them to my
physics class (who just worked out part of the math of that thought
experiment in their most recent studio). The "to Baghdad" part uses that
part of the world as a microcosm at the end to show how various world power
meddling post-WWII (and post-Cold War) has led to some contradictory actions
and reactions.
All in all, while it gets a bit preachy at times, it's a good and
entertaining overview of the past couple centuries. Strongly recommended.
$18.99 cover price, I got it for $12.91 at Amazon.
New Comics:
Comics and comic collections that I got this week and were actually
supposed to be out this week, as far as I can tell. These reviews will
generally be spoiler-free, but the occasional bit will slip in.
Deadpool Corps Rank and Foul: Marvel - I haven't really been following
the Deadpool books since the reboot from Deadpool & Cable's ending, but as a
guidebook this still covers a lot of the stuff I did follow (and can let me
catch up a bit on the parts I missed). It helps that this is also a sort of
de facto Great Lakes Avengers/Initiative sourcebook. :) Recommended. $3.99
The Marvels Project #7 (of 8): Marvel - This would be the time that the
plot would really get into gear, if this were actually a story with a plot.
But it's pretty obvious by this point that the series is really just a bunch
of origin stories retold with a thin bit of mystery storyline to thread them
all together. Seriously, if the comics didn't stop for 4-8 page origin
stories several times a month, the entire tale could be told adequately in
one issue. The other day I read an essay that claimed that (among other
factors), Busiek's "Marvels" series proved to the Big Two that they didn't
need to tell new stories anymore, people really just wanted to buy retellings
and elaborations of old stories...and this is almost a parody of that
premise. It makes for a decent, if meandering, read though. Mildly
recommended. $3.99
Thunderbolts #142: Marvel - Siege trade dress. This is mostly a running
fight between most of the Thunderbolts and most of the Mighty Avengers (both
teams have had some recent deaths, plus Pym's been busy) as Asgard gets blown
up around them a bunch. There's some good thematic moments, such as USAgent
versus Scourge (both of them started off as "through a glass, darkly"
versions of Captain America) and plenty of chaotic combat. I especially
liked Amadeus Cho vs. Mr. X (just because you can read Cho's mind doesn't
mean you can follow what he's thinking). A bit gory at times, mind you.
Recommended. $2.99
Avengers: the Initiative #34: Marvel - Siege trade dress. The first
half is the Avengers Resistance versus Norn-powered-up scrubs at Camp HAMMER,
with Night Thrasher making his Fateful Decision. It works pretty well, and
has several "it's about TIME" moments. Then the action shifts to
Taskmaster's group in Asgard and the three narrative lines that's been
following (Taskmaster, Constrictor and Diamondback, although very little of
her POV). It ends at about the same point as Thunderbolts, referenced
against the main Siege storyline. Boom. Recommended. $2.99
Mighty Avengers #35: Marvel - Siege trade dress. This actually takes
place before the other two Siege books I got, including a few pages of
interlude where Amadeus assembles the team that shows up in Thunderbolts (and
explaining why USAgent isn't wearing his mask there). A big chunk of the
early pagecount is devoted to infodump, with Ace and Black Jacquie of GRAMPA
(first seen in Amazing Fantasy) playing the role of audience. Apparently #34
took place months ago, in terms of the overall timeline, with all the Reign
of Kings stuff (wait, Mighty Avengers were in Reign of Kings? Huh) and
various other guest appearances being the result of the M.Avs "keeping up
appearances" despite effectively ceasing to be a team at the end of #34. Or
maybe they interleave differently, I don't particularly care. :) Anyway,
with most of the team busy over in Thunderbolts, Pym is left to deal with the
whole Ultron thing that's been simmering in the background, and his master
plan for Jocasta and the Infinite Mansion gets even creepier if that's at all
possible. Recommended. $2.99
The Amazing Spider-Man #626: Marvel - A bit of a mish-mash of guest
characters that might result in some continuity snarls around Siege, but
that's not terribly important...this issue's real conflict is between Peter
Parker and Michelle Gonzales. The rest of the sturm und drang is just a way
to get them both running for their lives together, one of the more dramatic
bonding experiences you can have. :) The art by Gaydos is REALLY dark and
sometimes hard to follow, although most of the action takes place at night in
a construction site, so it may not be a fair demonstration of his skills
overall. Recommended. $2.99
PS238 #43: Do Gooder Press - The Big Alien War Story that's been brewing
for a while now starts to come together, with the kids ending up pawns of one
side or the other. Lots of court intrigue and Big Plan sort of maneuvering,
which doesn't exactly play to the book's strengths. There's still plenty of
good bits, but the overall story is merely okay. Recommended. $2.99
Gone Missing:
Stuff that came out some places this week and that I wanted to buy, but
couldn't find for whatever reason, so people don't have to email me asking
"Why didn't you review X?" (If it's neither here nor in the section above,
though, feel free to ask, I might have forgotten about it!)
Current list as of 3/24/10: Official Handbook of the Gold Digger
Universe #22, Gold Digger v3 #105, Gold Digger Sacred Library #3, Marvel Boy:
the Uranian #3. Add Transformers Last Stand of the Wreckers #3 and X-Factor
#203. (Later note: found both TFLSotW and X-Factor at Hastings on Thursday.)
Awards:
"Ah, Modernity! Pass The Bullets, Please" Award to The Cartoon History of
the Modern World Part II
"Well, Great Lakes Initiative Minus Squirrel Girl, But She Got An Entry In
Another Guidebook Recently" Award to Deadpool Corps Rank and Foul
"Coming Soon, A Miniseries About The Guys Who Played Cap And Bucky In The
Faked Origin Story Newsreel" Award to The Marvels Project #7 (of 8)
"That's Not How Rain Of Arrows Normally Works" Award to Thunderbolts #142
"No, The Other Skull-Masked Guy Who Fights Captain America...No, Not That
One Either" Award to Avengers: the Initiative #34
"Ultron Should Know Better Than To Dismiss Jarvis As Irrelevant" Award to
The Mighty Avengers #35
"Her Tail IS Her Moneymaker" Award to The Amazing Spider-Man #626
"Not As Scandalous As I'd Expected" Award to PS238 #43
Dave Van Domelen, "Nice speech, kid, but you had me at 'Screw Pym.'"
- USAgent, Mighty Avengers #35